A Messy Head
by i that breathes
Summary: Incomplete and random little bursts of anguish expressed brokenly.
1. can't sleep

Yamato awoke to the feeling of his lover's arms releasing their firm grip around his waist. This nor the feeling of the mattress shifting alarmed him. Rather it was the heavy, broken sigh that caused him to jolt. "...'kashi?" The ANBU lieutenant eased himself onto one elbow, yawning quietly. It wasn't so uncommon for one of them to wake up in the middle of the night- as of now, it wasn't even midnight yet. 10:55, the sleek digital clock glared from the nightstand. Yamato mused silently to himself for a moment, wondering what had disrupted the calm he and Kakashi had been enjoying. It could have been PSTD of sorts; it wasn't uncommon for shinobi to be uncomfortable while lying still- especially those whom had received the red or black scrolls to be wary of sleeping next to someone. Kakashi had been assigned numerous ones over his extensive career, though he had never quite revealed how many. With a smirk, Yamato realised the many specialised seduction missions may have been the source of Kakashi's charismatic, charming personalities, as well as his experience in bed. "Thinking about something?" he inquired playfully his lips spread into a mischevious smile. He waited patiently for a response. Maybe Kakashi would quip back that he was waiting for Yamato to share the covers._ 'Or,_' the brunette considered, a small blush growing on his cheeks._ 'Knowing him, he'd say something about how he's waiting for me to wrap my lips around his_ c-' "I just have a lot on my mind right now," came the reply.

Silence.

Yamato cleared his throat, hurrying to recover his thoughts before he accidentally blurted out something indecent and embarassed himself. "Oh? Like what?" He waited again, banishing any naughty, imaginitive images of his lover whipping out some sort of toy or suggesting some new game inspired by Icha Icha. 'God, I'm acting even worse than he does.' He was in the middle of rolling his eyes at his own thoughts when Kakashi interrupted them again. "Stuff," he answered was another pause, and Yamato frowned. "What kind of stuff," he asked as he scooted closer, sitting up now. The silver haired man's voice was flat and his expression, Yamato discovered, emotionless. Concerned now, he wound his hands around his lover's middle and rested his chin against the other man's shoulder. Absently, he traced small circles against the blue fabric stretched taut over Kakashi's stomach. It was a secret of theirs, that Kakashi could be coaxed or soothed or aroused when his abdomen was rubbed a certain way, depending on his mood of course. Yamato employed this strategy now, keeping his movements slow and controlled. He was hoping Kakashi would open up on his own without any further coaxing, but the pale face remained as expressionless as before. Growing increasingly worried now, Yamato lifted one hand and pressed it to Kakashi's cheek. His skin was smooth and cool, showing no signs of fever. The younger man still had his hand there when Kakashi curled his fingers around his lover's wrist and gently pulled it away. Twisting slightly and unhooking Yamato's other arm from around his waist Kakashi laid down again, facing away from his partner.

"I'm fine, you don't have to do that."


	2. everything

He didn't know what to do with the feelings swirling around inside his chest when he woke up. A combination of sadness, anger, and hate all wound together and squeezed his heart. What was this...? The manifestation of his guilt, perhaps...? No, that couldn't be it. He had done nothing wrong- at least not wrong enough to deserve the suffocating feeling of drowning within himself. Perhaps it was simply an anxiety attack. Lots of people had them, especially when they had been traumatised previously in their lives. He had experienced trauma, right? Although of course, it had always been true that his life had not been overly horrible, he had still been hurt enough to justify feeling this way, hadn't he...? Even if there was no answer, he had long since decided that he had. The tightness in his chest eased slightly and for the moment, he felt relieved. He wondered wistfully if it would be possible to slip away for a while later in the day to sleep for a bit. He had never come to figure out why, but for years, he had always slept better during the day than at night. Someone once told him that it probably had to do with sleeping with the lights on. He didn't doubt that. His eyes were tired, and he could feel their exhaustion, almost as if they were an extension of himself. 'Which they are,' he reminded himself. 'Any part of my body would be.' Eager to move away from that thought, he tried to turn his attention elsewhere by checking for the crushing feeling that had occupied his chest not long before. and a deep sigh, he resumed the free fall through his mind, imagining that he was racing down an impossibly tall corridor of bookshelves on a ladder. 'A wheeled one of course,' The kind that used to fascinate him when he was a child. He had always wondered how people managed to use them without falling. For a few years, it had even been a small dream of his to balance on one himself. 'A foolish, childish fantasy,' he acknowledged as a strangely nostalgic feeling washed over him. 'But in this desperate time, any fantasy would be beautiful.' He almost smiled now, imagining himself fully grown, balancing on a wheeled ladder, reaching for a book. A smile nearly crossed his face, but he didn't allow it to come. He didn't want to smile. Really, he hardly ever smiled. Anyone who knew him (Or assumed that they did) told him to smile more often. It annoyed him. He was usually content to express his feelings through a combination of subtle actions and minor expressions. He did have his goofy moments, where he might drunkenly begin pawing at someone or even singing silly little songs just to make himself chuckle. He nearly chuckled now as he imagined himself, with a s strange sense of fondness, singing a small song before bursting into laughter. 'Look at me, regarding myself as if I were some sweet, innocent child when I am not.' His mood sobered and darkened. 'And I am nothing more than a monster, hideous and strange and cruel.' He contemplated of the ways he had been described over the years. Cold, evil, sinister- he could hardly remember a time when such things had not been said of him. 'Frankly' he admitted to himself. 'They are not entirely wrong.' Almost immediately, he remembered the cruelty of other people and their terrible way of impressing such stinging guilt upon him and chased the previous thought away. The same was for the following one, which disputed his innocence as a victim and mocked him for pitying himself again. For a moment, the thoughts chased each other around before he stopped them with a third and wondered why it always felt as if he were being plagued by ceaseless waves of emotion or emptiness and loneliness. 'If I were to drown in one, would I prefer to drown in emotion, or a lack thereof...?' He pondered this briefly. 'Perhaps emotion...? No, I'd rather suffer from a lack of it. Being filled with emotion does nothing back cause me to feel as if I would burst.' Having settled that, his mind was left free to wander again. Until he found something new to rest on however, his mind was simply drifting. Random images and ideas rushing through his mind in a disorganised jumble. 'Like a tangled ball of yarn,' he mused. Strangely enough, he was struck by the impulse to find a spool of yarn and bat it around, like a cat. He quickly pushed the urge away. 'It's so quiet,' he noticed, 'Nothing here to fill the space but my thoughts and I.' Although that was not entirely true, he wondered why he couldn't speak to better feel his mind filling the space. Maybe he was afraid to break the silence, although the longer the quiet wore on, the louder the thoughts seemed to him. Now, he groaned within himself as what was once a peacefully dizzying kaleidoscope of wonders and silly inward drabbles increased itself into a roaring crescendo that clashed mightily in his ears and caused the ache in his head to intensify. 'It is not possible,' he remarked to himself. 'And yet here I am, fearing I will become deaf if this sound goes on for any longer.' As much as he enjoyed the quiet, losing his hearing did not sound very appealing. He would much rather put up with the noise than lose the ability to hear the rain. 'It would be nice if it were raining now.' Rain and storms, he found soothing. Loud peals of thunder where one of the only noises he would willingly invite. It had been awhile, he realized, since he had seen or heard a thunderstorm. Then again, the summer was approaching quickly. It wouldn't be long before he was wishing the storms would stop. Again, his thoughts left off with such speed that he could hardly process any of the. 'It's very difficult, living in my mind. Why, you'd have to be just as skilled and poised as me to navigate it all.' A small swell of pride rose up within him. He did not pride himself on very much, though he had found that commending himself for not violently tearing apart anything or anyone with his bare hands was quite the accomplishment. It was often hard to suppress the terrible rage that rose up within him. It came soundlessly, an unexpected rise of anger and hate that urged him to release upon whatever poor soul chanced to be near him in that moment, Of course, he never did. Otherwise, he would have been called into question for several murders. although he didn't smile, the thought cropped up a sort of morbid amusement, which he enjoyed as the comfortable feeling of laughing at something not meant to be made light of pleasured him. 'Speaking of pleasure,' he wondered idly as a small, random throb pulsed between his legs. He felt no inclination to appease it. He had already done so the night before, and many nights prior. He was aware that, despite what he told himself, there was no real arousal, only a desperate want to distract himself. Perhaps if he had a partner, such things would not occur. 'Rubbish,' he briskly brushed the notion aside. 'I can't stand being touched, and no one could stand to touch me besides.' Though perhaps mildly depressing, he knew it was very true. In fact, he was certain of it. He could hardly face himself in the mirror anymore and could not imagine another being staring him in the eyes with anything other than contempt or a deep disappointment. was there, faintly, easing more and more as he allowed his thoughts to unfold freely in the quiet. It wasn't completely silent, and perhaps that was for the best. Despite how much he enjoyed the quiet, it only heightened his anxiety when things were dead silent. As if summoned by the acknowledgement it had recieved, his body jolted involuntarily as his chest tightened. His heart thumped loudly in his chest as the contraction eased, leaving his throat tight and his mouth dry. A quick glance to his left confirmed that the sun was still rising steadily, and the beam of light that caught his eye blinded him momentarily. For an instant, he hated the light with every fiber of his being, but just as quickly as it struck him, the feeling faded away. Now he was just numb and dizzy again, swirling around in his thoughts. 'Am I crazy,' he wondered. 'Or maybe everyone wakes up like this, but never talks about it...?' That had to have been the answer, he decided. All these people in such a large world- he couldn't possibly be alone. As soon as he thought it, his chest contracted again, and he was left with an uncomfortable sinking feeling in his stomach. He glanced off to the left again and stared at the light for a moment before becoming frustrated with its brightness and turning his gaze away. He was tempted to check the time, but he felt that would somehow disenchant the experience. Soon, he would have to stop thinking so loudly. He would get up and start work for the day. Interacting with people almost always- no, always meant pushing aside his thoughts, or rather, diminishing them enough that he could concentrate on whatever he had been tasked to. This was no small feat, as he constantly suffered a range of tumultuous fears and emotions. That was why he sometimes enjoyed having near total silence. It gave him room to think more freely. In noisy settings, it was all the sounds from others atop his own, and each time, he could hardly stand it. If someone interrupted his train of thought or disturbed him right as he had just managed to settle himself into a comfortable mental suspension, his thoughts disassembled. Like beads spilled from a tipped jar, they would roll and race away, eager to be free from their confinement and ignorant to his distress as he scrambled to cram them all back into place. Closing his eyes briefly, he wondered just how tired he would need to become fore it was acknowledged that he desperately needed rest. 'Probably a long while,' he mused. Indeed, it was not often that anyone would noticed his exhaustion, or so it seems. 'Or perhaps no one cares.' It had often been said that he seemed depressed or sad, and yet there had been little attempt to rescue him from those supposed feelings. What attempts there had been were swollen and clumsy, like that of a large bear battering apart o hive. He felt that way too, as if he were a small bee and those offering him comfort were large bears, recklessly tearing into the delicately crafted space he had ever so carefully crafted for himself. 'Tearing down my walls in a horrible way just makes things worse, not better.' For some strange reason, other people had developed the mad notion that he enjoyed having his thoughts intruded upon, whether by repeated, prodding questions or nosing about in his things. "We want to help you," they would say. "But you just don't speak enough." He snorted inwardly, the closest he had come to real laughter in all his thinking. 'Bullshit,' he mocked. 'If you cared, you would have stopped me from doing this to myself long ago.' It wasn't entirely fair to blame everyone else, he knew. But there were his thoughts, and this was his world. And in his world, he was a lone being, suffering all this despair and hate, whether it real or imagined. Surely it could not be wrong to shift the blame to someone else while he was thinking? He checked the light again. although the beam that had blinded him twice now had already disappeared, he still had to acknowledge that he was well into the morning now. 'It can hardly be past eight,' he deduced. 'Another hour of rambling couldn't hurt.' He was tired of thinking by now, but he knew that sleeping would not be an option for many more hours, as much as he wished it were so. Tiredly, he scrubbed a hand over his face, and then did it a second time. Why he was always so tired, he could never quite decide. Stress and anxiety were undoubtedly large contributes to his current distress, but he also doubted that his lack of rest was helping. 'I must have wondered a thousand things by now,' he reflected. 'Or even ten or two thousand.' The thought didn't make very much sense, but he was used to his thoughts not making very much sense. He was so used to it in fact, that he was often irritated when his mind suddenly became lucid and bright. His self-destructive habit of clinging to his negative emotions for the sake of their familiarity was in part the reason why he never felt any better than this. Again, though he wished to declare himself innocent, he couldn't ignore his own disgusting and absurd tendencies in the process. Or maybe I can, he mused. After all, that is how I've survived for so long. Yes, laughing at things like death and war and famine were generally frowned upon by the larger society, but he did what he needed to survive. 'They're hypocrites anyway,' he conjectured irritably. 'Deciding me mad or callous for ignoring or mocking a death.' He paused in his thoughts and shifted, stretching out his legs carefully to avoid accidentally cramping his bad left leg. 'I hardly see the point' he continued once he had readjusted. 'It isn't as if we're going to be around much longer anyway.' He nearly chuckled again when he called to mind the lyrical and morbid poetry of a song he had once heard. "ashes to ashes, bones to paste. You'll wither away in your resting place- we all fall down." Sometimes things like that frightened him, for all his morbid humour. He was still afraid of what might live in the dark, and every day without fail, he would wonder whether the rest of the world had disappeared from around him. This was why he had always deemed that his greatest fear must be being alone. 'Because if I am already always so lonely,' he considered. 'Then perhaps what is that frightens me is not death itself, but the loneliness of it.' How often had he heard death described as a lonely journey that once must venture alone? More times than he could count by now, and that had taken its toll upon him. Again, his chest rose and fell with a large sigh and he noticed that the knot of worry and fear that had been nestled firmly within his ribs had loosened itself until it had ceased to exist. It would be back again, of course. Just the same as the confusingly twisted rabbit hole of discombobulated and misplaced emotions plagued him day to day, it always came back.


	3. Out of Curiousity

"Would you be willing to sleep with me?" Sakura jumped. "E-excuse me?!" She glared up at her former teacher. Hatake Kakashi's eyes curved into happy little arches as a michevious lit that he couldn't quite help coloured his words. "Maa, I'm only asking you a question, Sakura-chan." He blinked and stared up at the canopy of trees that he could've sworn wasn't there a moment ago. "I suppose that would be a 'no' then," he deduced aloud as he sat up, one hand pressed against his sore (and perhaps broken) ribs. The only response he received was a fircely icy glare and the low tittering of the other two ANBU assigned to their squad.


	4. small ways to be

_There were lots of ways to exist, if you asked Kakashi. You could exist in a photograph or a memory or a story. You could exist as yourself or some alternate self living within your body. You could exist as an object after you ceased to breathe, or you could exist as a spirit or soul. Kakashi had existed in most of these forms over a span of years, though he'd yet to die and exist as some sort of unanimated form of himself, like a pile of ashes in an urn. He supposed such an existence would be rather uneventful. Maybe it'd be a bit more exciting if he stayed on someone's table..? Specifically, the table of a young woman. Surely that would be interesting, or at least nice to look at. Who knows, maybe he'd be reincarnated as a pair of lacy, red-_

"...shi-sensei!"

Jolted suddenly from his thoughts, Kakashi looked up to see the concerned and annoyed faces of his two students, their friend Sai, and his kouhai, Tenzou. "Ah, were you saying something..?" Naruto immediately began ranting about the stupidity of their absent-minded teacher while Sakura rolled her eyes and Sai and Tenzou both relaxed upon realising nothing was wrong. _'ust a man losing his mind quietly, that's all._ "We were asking if you wanted to get some ramen with us. The mission report's not due for another week, but since we finished early-" Naruto cut Sakura off mid-sentence, flailing his arms about wildly as he yelled. "OF COURSE KAKASHI-SENSEI IS COMING! HE'S GOTTA PAY HIS TAB-" At the mention of his debt, Kakashi cringed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Maa, I think I'd rather just get started on that report." Sakura looked up from the chokehold she had trapped her noisy teammate into and began to protest. "But you don't even-"

_Poof_

'Finally...' Sighing, the silver haired man settled onto his tanatami, removed his sandals, pulled off his flak jacket and jonin vest, and untied his hitae-ae. Eyes closed, he relaxed and settled back into his thoughts again. _Now, where was I..? Oh right. So I've existed in lots of ways, except the ones that have to do with death. Though I suppose I've died so many times in spirit that I may have done that as well. _Counting off these small deaths was a bit depressing, he quickly realised. Sitting up abruptly, Kakashi wished he had not left his students in such a hurry; he hardly wanted to be alone with his thoughts, and God knows what possessed him to believe for even a moment that he did. After a brief debate on whether or not he would bother requipping all of the clothing he had shed, the distressed philosopher (or flounderer?) made a quick exit from the confines of his bedroom via the window and hoped the landlord wouldn't catch him leaving.


	5. burn

Kakashi stared dully at the kunai clutched in his sweaty palm. Silver strands of hair, now loosed from the confines of the bloodied and dirt streaked porcelain mask that had sheltered his face for the last several days, spilled over into his vision. Flitering the tangled tresses were glimpses of dark purple bruises and streaks of red, the latter of which was enough to break him out of his daze. '_Again,'_ he thought silently as the sting intensified into a steady burn. _'Just once more...' _With a shaking hand, the man rested the blade against the outside of his left thigh. He had done this before, again and again, since after the time his father had taken his life. And each time he had flinched as the cold steel bit into his flesh, biting his lip until it bled more than the long, thin lines he had drawn on his skin. A morbid, terrible habit of one of Konoha's most feared shinobi. _"This is dangerous,"_ he had acknowledged to himself aloud one morning, his back to the window, voice dry and monotonous as he studied the newly acquired depth of the marks he had made. He had been aware of it many moons ago, long before the small, neat rows of cross-hatched scars had advanced down the length of his thigh and then back up again when he ran out of space. Long before Asuma had caught him scratching away at a bloodied scab and before he had been forced on leave for several weeks until he could convince Sarutobi that he was fit for duty. And yet despite knowing this and resenting the therapy and the thinly veiled attempts to force him into socialising and the threats of putting him on medical leave indefinitely and the pitying glances and stares and whispers and haughty sneers-

He couldn't help the same swell of pride, of relief that came over him whenever he sank the blade a millimeter deeper than before.

His leg twitched as the burn from his cuts increased until it reached a full inferno. A small, quiet moan slipped past his lips and he pressed a hand against the dripping mess of torn skin and mangled flesh that he could have sworn was the same little cut he had promised himself he wouldn't open any further. One grey eye rolled back and closed blissfully as waves of stinging, burning pain resonated from the wound. _'God, this is amazing.' _He couldn't stop himself now. Desperate to feel more of that horrible, wonderful feeling, he drew again, hand trembling so that he was forced to steady it with his other. In an almost frenzied haze, Kakashi dragged and dug and edged and scraped and scratched the blade against his skin, unaware of the whimpers and curses and cries emanating from him. Finally, he lost his grip on the weapon and it clattered to the floor noisily. He hadn't heard it. Reveling in the relentless flow of pain that washed over his mind and pushed him into an even deeper haze, he cracked a smile. "I..t.. feels s..o go..o..d," he whispered brokenly as he slumped against the wall behind him and relaxed, deciding to leave the cleanup for morning, once the blood had stopped flowing and the wetness on his skin had dried and caked itself to his skin. It would be hell to move once he awoke, but he hardly cared. 'Look at this mess.' The crooked grin on his face stretched out further as he surveyed his handiwork with the same sort of lazy satisfaction one of his hounds might have after marking their territory. Kakashi's satisfied expression quickly morphed into a frown. Had he missed a spot over there..? It was hard to tell with so many open wounds streaming blood all over his leg like that. Grumbling, he lifted his head away from the wall.

Kakashi blinked as he stared up at the ceiling. It took several seconds for him to realise that, in his haste to correct his gory artwork, he had managed to lean over a touch too far, resulting in his current dilema. Muttering a curse, the bloodied shinobi struggled to push himself upright. A sudden wave of dizziness and nausea rushed over him and he quickly lowered himself to the floor again. Groaning, he curled up as much as his wounds would allow and clamped one hand over his mouth tightly, willing away the sick feeling in his stomach as he struggled to swallow the bile rising in his throat. Squeezing his eyes shut firmly as he braced himself for the pain he knew was coming, Kakashi slowly forced himself into an upright position. Quivering, he crawled towards his tatami and collasped.


	6. For Eyes Sore

Shiranui Genma was twenty-two years old the first time he ever saw Hatake Kakashi's face. It wasn't quite the way he had imagined it would be. For years, the mysterious silver-haired shinobi had been the hot topic of the village. In the markets and on the streets, there were whispers of the White Fang's brat or the world's youngest shinobi. In the taverns and shops, patrons huddled closely together in the wee hours of the morning, exchanging frightening stories and murky secrets. For Genma, prestige didn't mean much. Sure, the Hatake boy had raw talent and had completely shattered records across the Five Nations. And maybe he had intelligence that matched or even superseded that of Nara Shikaku himself, but even that couldn't outmatch the hard work and sheer determination Genma had poured into his training to reach the title of tokubetsu jonin:

Oh, how wrong he was.

It had been while Genma had been on his back, half-burried in a snowbank and bleeding profusely that he first glimpsed Kakashi's face.

_The cold had long since numbed his fingers and toes and was spreading through his entire body at an alarming rate. Trembling, from pain or cold, he didn't know anymore. He heard the crunch of footsteps from somewhere over his head and swore. 'Shit shit shit! He's not even trying to hide himself anymore- I'm finished..!' His panic was cut short by a sudden contraction in his chest. Before he realised what was happening, a gout of foaming blood rose in his throat and streamed from his mouth. Sputtering and struggling to raise his head, he forced his eyes open against the stinging of half-frozen tears and rivlets of blood and stiffened in terror as the blurred face of his opponent- no, his excecutioner came into view. Genma blinked. He has been expecting a kunai or a katana to be burried into his chest, or maybe in his eye, if his opponent felt like being particularly cruel. There were a number of ways to kill someone, and Genma had dreaded any and all of them, but now there was an angel standing over him. He blinked again, trying to clear his vision so he could get a better look. Clearly he had already died, and he would've liked to catch a glimpse of the face that had greeted him into the afterlife. The face disappeared from view, and a moment later he felt the dizzying sensation of rising from the ground. Grinning stupidly, Genma realised he was being carried away by a pretty angel with surprisingly muscular arms- then everything went black._

Later, he would wake up in a hospital, babbling about "the pretty snow angel" who had saved him. The nurses would smile and nod their way through the story and exchange annoyed glances over their dellusional patient's head. Eventually Genma was discharged and returned to active duty, much to the relief of the hospital staff.


	7. cherries

Kakashi had never particularly enjoyed cherries. In fact, he wouldn't quite say he liked them at all. He could even go as far as to say that he hated them. When Kakashi was still a child, his father, Samuko, often purchased them in large quantities while he had still been in the health to think about things like eating or giving Kakashi treats. Young Kakashi, only two or three at the time and already largely disinterested in sweet things, took to rolling the strange stemmed "balls" around on the floor until he was prompted to eat them. _"Maa, come on 'kashi,"_ his father would always scold him while he dabbed at the red spots on the bamboo floor left in his son's wake._ "What have I said about playing with your food, hm?"_ Samuko at that time, was still ever patient with his Little Shinobi, and would pluck a clean cherry from the pile of bright red fruit in the (ironically) white wicker basket and offer it to the boy. Always, Kakashi would hesitantly accept it, place it on his tongue, and chew it once. And always, he would scrunch his face and promptly spit out the thing, pit nestled in the center of the mushed and slobbered remains of the fruit. Vainly, Samuko laboured to teach Kakashi how to eat around the pits as described, only to be met with stubbron resistance. Eventually, no more cherries were brought home. In his later years came the formation of fond memories of sitting in cherry orchards with the Yondaime on the rare occassion that the latter of the two had time to cajole him into leaving his lonely apartment (which usually didn't take as much effort as they both liked to pretend it did). After the formation of his squad, Kakashi regularly was offered cherries by Rin. He always threw them out when she wasn't looking (and Obito would always yell at him for it) until he finally refused her openly one day. That had been one of the most terrible meetings of Team Yellow Flash; it ended with Kakashi having a good portion of hair shaved from one side of his head (thanks to Obito's wayward shuriken) and Obito himself recieved several bruises and a mouthful of dirt. Both boys were scolded throughly, and from then on, the team was forbidden to bring any treats to their local training sessions without their sensei's permission. Another incident had further caused Kakashi to believe that the existance of cherries was immoral.


	8. cracked?

_'Insanity,' _he decided as the kunai ripped through his opponent's stomach. _'Is not all it's cracked up to be.' _Sure, plenty of people claimed it and seemed to fit the part. Dragging around and moaning to themselves, hearing voices, having frightening visions... But it really wasn't that complicated or even that explicit. Insanity, he as he had decided, was not all it was cracked up to be. Yes, there was certainly a validity to the statements made by characters of a bizarre nature. That was a fact that could not be disputed. However, most people often seemed to overlook small incidents as mere personality quirks or oddities. The strange looks he got for checking the doors and windows every few hours? Simple paranoia. The way he cringed every time the silence was broken by a loud, booming voice? Nerves. Or what about the way he jumped at shadows or ignored the feeling of a needle or blade breaking his skin? More nerves and a high pain threshold, he had supposed. Afterall, didn't someone need to be called "insane" by at least two or three people before he started to claim insanity..? _'A stupid rule,'_ he thought as he haphazardly slashed off the ear of a young man whom had been screaming something at him prior to losing his appendage. Wouldn't that mean several people would not only have to notice someone acting strange, but also deem that same person to be abnormal and uncontrollable? _'Bullshit, that describes most of the human race,'_ he snorted. And besides, if nobody overheard you being called "insane" then that would be the same as claiming it yourself without being called it, right..? He paused here for a moment, head swimming dizzily as he fumbled with the confusing thought. "There, he's stopped!" He blinked twice, jolted from his thoughts by the shout. _'Now, see-'_ he mused to himself as he sidestepped the katana of another opponent, this one coloured oddly pale. '-had anyone noticed my irritation at having my thoughts interrupted, it would've been assumed that I was undergoing a common experience triggered by my dislike of loud sounds. However-' he continued to himself as he neatly sliced off the attackers arm, spinning gracefully on his left foot to strike the face of a second attacker with his right. '-I highly doubt that most people react to such a small thing with this level of anger.' Granted, it was possible that he suffered misophonia. He had entertained the idea before and found it a plausible and tame explanation for the reason why he was often filled with an uncontrollable urge to strangle people when they dropped things. But that still didn't quite rule out insanity; you see, since stark white, padded cells illuminated by harsh, blinding lights are usually swathed layers of thick silence, he couldn't exactly let the notion pass unconsidered. In fact, it seemed less likely that someone with that sort of severe reaction would be allowed to wander about of his own volation when any little thing could send him into a frenzy. Nodding inwardly, he slid smoothly beneath the arc of two tagged shiruken and responded with his own. 'Maybe I should call on Pakkun or something.' He studied the bloody gash on his arm made by a third shuriken, which he had missed while absorbed in his musings. 'He'd probably scold me later for not summoning the pack or at least sending him for backup...' He frowned beneath his mask, brow furrowing in puzzlement as he tried to remember what exactly his mission had been. 'Oh well. Kill first, ask questions later, right?' Flippantly, true to his form, he casually leaned backwards to allow another kunai to whizz by his nose. Maybe his lacksidasal attitude towards death constituted a reasonable claim to insanity..? People who had a relaxed attitude towards death were often assumed to be suicidal, and suicidal people were crazy, right..? He was suicidal, technically. He had attempted once before, by way of overdose. Tried sawing into his wrists too with a blunted knife, but he had shied away from the idea of stabbing himself directly with the point. Still, an attempt or two did place him in that catergory. Unfortunately, it also placed him under more unsavory labels, such as "attention freak" and the like. Further still, he might even be called out as a "fake" because he had thought out his suicide more rationally and had given up upon realising that the blade he had use was not going to break his skin easily. 'It is assumed of both the suicidal and insane that they are irrational beings.' Perhaps that was all insanity was: Pure irrationality and unrestrained impulse. If that were the case- he pondered drily as he ruthlessly shoved the rounded backend of a kunai between someone's ribs -then he was quite insane as it was. Impulsive more so than irrational, he supposed. Nonetheless, he still fit the bill, so to speak. All the same, no matter what the definition of the word, Hatake Kakashi was fairly certain that he was out of his mind- at least somewhat. Dully, he deflected several kunai and wondered how long the fight would drag on. He was probably already tired by now, carried on only by instinct and a vague, fluccuating will to live, perhaps moments away from collapse. Still, that did not stop him from plunging back into his thoughts, having decided that he could stand a bit more introspection before he began focusing on the battle before him.


	9. breathe

There was blood again, slick on his hands and sliding between his fingers to fall to the floor beneath him only to land on the floor in messy splatters. He curled his toes and felt it squish between them. _'Warm,'_ was the only intelligible thought he could draw from the peacefully blank soundlessness of his mind. He knew he would hate himself for it later, for all of it. He was going to hate himself when he woke up and realised that he had done this, but the warmth and blissful silence were too much of a pleasure for him to care._ 'Now where..?' _His eyes searched the floor, glowing ominously in the darkened room._ 'Ah, there.' _As he stooped to obtain his prize, he couldn't help but gasp as his own chest thumped with excitement as he raised his fist. Clutched within his blood-slicked palm was the still beating heart of his victim. A shudder ran through his body. Trembling, he fingered the pulsating muscle gently, tracing the bulging veins and arteries, the majority of which remained miraculously unbroken. A swell of pride rose from deep within him. _'Nearly all intact, still wrapped around it so beautifully-'_ He shuddered again, this time in reaction to the slow heat snaking its way through his stomach and hovering near his crotch. He licked his lips, eager to taste his prize, but held himself back. _'No, no- musn't rush now.'_ He carefully set the organ down on the shattered remains of a chair and hunched back over the mess on the floor. It was revolting. Organs pulsed and palpitated unsteadily, vainly attempting to repair the damage he had caused. _'Silly thing,'_ he thought as he watched what he assumed to be his victim's stomach squirm feebily on the cold concrete._ 'You're dead, stop moving now.'_ Brushing aside a thick coil of intestines, he pulled from the steaming mess a long string. Sighing, he ran his tongue along the length of it, groaning happily as the tang of blood flooded his senses. Eyes sliding closed, he allowed himself to drift as he idly licked at the still-warm blood coating the severed veins of his victim. Another pulse, this time from his own body, caused him to whimper. _'I can't wait anymore..._' He was largely undressed as it was, the remaints of his clothing clinging uselessly to his exposed pale skin while the rest had been obliterated or scattered around the room during the struggle. Sighing again, he leaned back against an overturned table smoothed his hand over his bloodied thigh. Breath hitching at the touch, he continued his minstrations, smearing the blood closer and closer to his crotch until he was panting wetly, no longer trying to ignore heat rising within him. Slowly, his hand crept up the last few centimeters of bloodied skin until it brushed over his hardened flesh. Groaning loudly he wrapped his hand around it, all hesitation or means of drawing out the proceedure having vanished. The throbbing was driving him mad, and he could no longer resist it. The idea of shamelessly pleasuring himself while soaking in the blood and flesh of what had been a living being only moments before caused him to let out another sound. Uninhibited, small moans began slipping from his bloodied lips as he stroked himself. Panting harshly now, he struggled to sit himself against the wall only to slip and fall into the mess beneath him. Knowing where he was lying seemed to set him on fire. Growling firecely, he pumped harder and harder until he was almost certain his sex would be ripped off and join the mess of flesh scattered about him. Just when he was sure that the imagined aftermath of his frenzied state would indeed include him waking up to find himself missing his penis, his passion erupted suddenly. With a howl, his back snapped into a sharp arch, and he offered his own fluids to the ones drying on his body. Although the sound quickly faded, he remained that way for several moments, shuddering as overwhelming waves of pleasure washed his vision white and rendered him immobile. Exhausted, he slumped to the floor again, panting._ 'The heart..!'_ He remembered suddenly, eyes snapping open as his body lunged towards the weakened structure he had rested his favourite portion on. Grasping it tightly, he pushed it against his chest and closed his eyes again. "Mmm..." The consistant pulse of the organ soothed him and chased away any doubt he had felt before he had begun enjoying his prey. Curling himself into a fetal position amongst the remains of his deceased donor he smiled softly and whispered gently:

"Goodnight."


End file.
